the path

I’m so tired, I must keep moving.


The path cuts from the cleft of a shadowed valley and gently meanders into the shade of a curious country where little grows and less thrives. It is night, and the sky is a sheet of black steel. I look up, my gaze entranced: are they stars up there? Or a million points of hope never to reach me?

I’m so tired, I must keep moving.


The air is fresh and sharp; like a knife made of glass. My gaze wanders back down and my perception is struck; the sky may seem like dark, illuminated steel, but the land around me is darker still. It is a void, solid underfoot (on the path), but so dark a mere stones-throw away as to not exist at all. I could walk off the path and explore, test my theory, but, in the back of my mind, among its recesses, resides the thought that all is lost should the path be, and my will is stayed.

I’m so tired, I must keep moving.

I walk the path, or stagger, should truth be told. The night presses in on me like the arms of a hungry lover, and I think of the sun, and what it felt like, once.
From time to time, my eyes are drawn to the shadows. I can see things out there, perplexing things. They have wings and eyes of melancholy light; they peer at me, but have no discernable motives I can feel. They are like stone, but stone that can feel and hope, yet will never feel or taste. They are wretched.

I’m so tired, I must keep moving.

Slowly I stumble, fall to my knees and then to my face. The path is cold against my cheek. I feel pain, but my next reaction is surprise, for it occurs to me that from here my eyes are given a new perspective, so many centuries have passed while I stumbled along the path, trying to divine and trying to keep moving; and now, down here, I am finally given the chance to see, and not be shown.

I see.

I was wrong.

I grow.

Another step taken.